


kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

by captainpeggy



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Backstory, Bisexual Male Character, Desire Demons (Dragon Age), M/M, Pining, Relationship Advice, or discussion thereof
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24299413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainpeggy/pseuds/captainpeggy
Summary: Look in a mirror,Varric wanted to say.They’ve got your smile, Hawke, and your eyes, and your hands, and they smirk at me and it makes me wish, just for a second, that I was a goddamn mage—Varric isn't a liar, exactly. He's just a damn good storyteller, and he knows what sells-- on the stands or off them.And Anders isn't nosy, really. He's just got an ear for mistruths and a healer's grudge against pain.The truest stories tend to be the hardest ones to tell.
Relationships: Anders & Varric Tethras, Anders/Karl Thekla, Male Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

**Author's Note:**

> CW for general discussion of Anders' experiences in the Circle. Nothing beyond what's mentioned in canon, but just a heads-up!

“What do they look like to you?”

The words snapped Varric out of his pleasantly tipsy reverie and back to the noise and flickering firelight of the Hanged Man. It had been a long day— it had felt more like a week, really, or a month. There had certainly been enough dragons involved to fill a month. There had been enough dragons to fill the next several decades.

“What do they look like to you?” Anders repeated. “The desire demons.”

“What do they look like to _you,_ ” muttered Fenris into his drink, “a lovely idea for a roommate?”

Sitting between them, Isabela laced her fingers together and stretched, yawning dramatically for effect. “Boys, can you stay away from each other’s throats for _one_ evening?”

Hawke cut in. “The demons look like some goddamn peace and quiet, to me.”

“Oh, sure,” said Varric. “How does that manifest? A nice comfortable bed with claws sharp enough to rip your throat out?”

“No,” admitted Hawke, “they don’t look like peace and quiet, they look like demented old women with unnaturally perky tits.”

Isabela laughed. “Do we need to have a conversation, Hawke?”

“Absolutely not,” said Hawke. “The damn things’ mind-reading must be on the fritz. I only find women with _realistic_ tits attractive.”

“Oh, sure,” Isabela agreed. “Nothing like a nice pair of reasonably sized tits. Realism is _such_ a common fetish.”

“What do you see, Isabela?” asked Fenris nonchalantly. “Me, naked except for a feathered cap?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Isabela replied cheerily. “Varric never answered the question, though. Interrogate _him_.”

Hawke grinned. “Yes, by all means, Varric, enlighten us.”

“I see a set of fifty enchanted bolts, all sorted and ready for me to impale some bandits with,” said Varric. “Well-made weaponry really gets me going.”

“Oh, bull _shit,_ ” laughed Hawke. “Really. What do they look like?”

_Look in a mirror,_ Varric wanted to say, toss it out there like a well-timed quip, dip the edge in enough sarcasm that the table went wild for the joke. You can tell the truth and still be lying, just the same as you can lie in a way that’s more truthful than anything else could be. That’s storytelling, and if there’s one thing Varric Tethras was, it was a storyteller.

_They look like you,_ he wanted to say, and cap it off with a _crooked nose and shaggy hair and B.O. and all,_ so nobody mistook it for a declaration.

_They_ _’ve got your smile, Hawke, and your eyes, and your hands, and they smirk at me and it makes me_ **_wish_ ** _, just for a second, that I was a goddamn mage—_

“Same as yours,” he shrugged. “Demented women with weirdly perky tits. Maybe it’s their default setting, or something.”

Hawke cackled. “See, Bela! I’m not a freak.”

“Oh, yes,” Isabela replied. “If Varric is the baseline, you’re as normal as they come.”

Hawke gasped. “You wound me! Of the two of us, Varric is _far_ more well-adjusted—”

Varric took another swig of his drink, and when he set it down, he was unsettled to see Anders staring at him from across the table. The mage did an awful lot of thousand-yard staring, eyes focused on some entirely separate plane of existence, but when he wasn’t gazing off into space, his eyes were sharp and keen. It was the sort of look that made you think he could see right through you. Varric swore he caught a faint flicker of glowing blue in the man’s irises, and then it was gone, and their gaze held for a long moment until Varric looked away.

“I’m no medical text, Anders, quit studying me,” he said lightly, tossing the order out with a generous helping of humor.

Anders narrowed his eyes for a moment, and there was that same flash of blue in them before he blinked and laughed. “My apologies. You’re just such a sight to see.”

The banter was easy, rehearsed. Most people would have taken it at face value. But Varric had spent enough of the evening saying things he didn’t mean to recognize a kindred spirit.

// 

It was a few days before things came back to bite him. The day had been clear and bright, and the evening sun that filtered through the Hanged Man’s grimy windows was more than enough to see by. Varric had settled in the corner and spread out a sheaf of records in front of him, working through tables and double-checking numbers. After an hour or two, he’d hardly made a dent. Accounting had always been more Bartrand’s area of expertise— accounting, and snapping his temper like a whip, and having eyes bigger than his pockets.

“Varric,” said a familiar voice, tone light and friendly.

He looked up. “Ah, Blondie. Here for a drink?”

“No,” said Anders. “Here to talk.”

Varric laughed uncomfortably. “What about?”

“You,” said Anders.

“You want to talk about _me?_ Can’t promise you’ll get much truth out of it, but fire away.”

Anders slid into the seat across from Varric. “Yes, I figured you weren’t the type to be overly factual about what you see in the mirror.”

Varric shrugged. “Comes with the territory. Good people make good stories, bad people make good stories. Honest depictions of mediocrity get you nowhere.”

“I’m very good at spotting when people are lying, you know,” Anders said. “I don’t magically know what the truth is, but I know when I’m not hearing it. It’s useful in my line of work. You wouldn’t believe how many wives look me in the eye and say their bruises are from walking into a door, or how many folks swear up and down they’ve never touched a drop of drink, or how quick people are to reassure me that whatever they’ve got can’t _possibly_ have been caught from the man down the block.”

“Must make it hard to have much of a relationship,” muttered Varric.

Anders raised an eyebrow. “Do your relationships usually involve copious amounts of deception?”

“Here’s a question, Blondie. Do _your_ relationships usually involve sticking your nose into other people’s business?” There wasn’t much venom to the words. Varric’s heart wasn’t in it, and it showed.

“Demented women… with weirdly… perky… tits,” said Anders gingerly, like the phrase was a half-rotted squirrel he was picking up with a stick. “ _That_ was a lie.”

Varric rolled his eyes. “Even you make mistakes once in a while.”

“Yes,” agreed Anders. “But that wasn’t one of them. Why did you lie?”

“It’s what I do,” said Varric.

Anders shook his head. “There, you see? That’s a lie, too.”

Varric sighed. “I’m a businessman, Blondie. I keep my personal life _personal._ Nobody’s concern but my own.”

“That’s a sad way to live,” Anders said.

Varric grunted noncommittally.

“You could have just changed the subject,” remarked Anders. “You could have told another joke, and we’d have taken the hint. You could have thrown it back at one of us. But you didn’t. You lied.”

“You are the last person I want to have this conversation with.”

“Who’s the first person you want to have it with?” The corner of Anders’ mouth quirked up. “I can go get Isabela, if you like—”

Varric had to chortle at that. “All right. Good joke.”

“I’m funny,” said Anders. “You should have seen me when I was a Warden. It was comedy city.”

“I’m so sure,” said Varric. “How’d it go so horribly wrong?”

Anders’ face twisted, and his brow furrowed. “There’s only so much you can laugh off before it breaks you.”

Varric sensed he’d hit a nerve, and opened his mouth to apologize, but remembered he was annoyed with the mage halfway through and snapped it shut again.

“What would you do if they made Hawke tranquil?” Anders asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

Varric blinked, tried to process the question. “I — _Hawke_? I’d go help him scrape up the bits of templar guts he’d leave lying around where they tried to grab him.”

“See?” said Anders. “Funny. What would you really do?”

It didn’t bear thinking about. But Varric did. He thought about it for as long as he could, for as long as he could breathe with the image of Hawke branded and broken in his minds’ eye. He heard Hawke’s voice, pleasantly, horrifically neutral, stripped of every bit of warmth or sarcasm or impatience—

“I’d kill them,” said Varric, quietly. “I’d kill every last one of them. And I’d make it hurt.”

“That answers both our questions, then,” Anders said.

“What?”

Anders sighed. “I asked why you lied. You asked why I— why I don’t laugh anymore. It’s the same answer, after a fashion. And I think you know that.”

“You talk in riddles.”

“They look like Hawke, don’t they? The demons. That’s what they look like to you.”

Varric took a drink instead of answering.

Anders smiled, but there was an edge of sadness to it. “He’s a remarkable man, Varric. I can hardly blame you.”

Varric sighed. “You’re persistent, Blondie, I’ll give you that.”

“You should tell him. We could be dead tomorrow, Varric. We don’t live the sort of lives conducive to _waiting and seeing_.”

“You’re damn right we could be dead tomorrow. That’s exactly why I’m not telling him anything,” snapped Varric. “Hawke is my best friend. I’m not throwing that away.”

Anders squinted at him with an expression of utter bemusement. “What the _hell_ makes you think you’d be throwing anything away?”

Varric looked at him incredulously. “What, do _you_ want to go up to him and say _oh yes, hello, Hawke, thank you for helping me with all my personal baggage and killing people for me over all these years, and for all the shit jokes and all the bad toasts and for never fucking leaving me by the side of the road where I belong, oh, and also I_ _’d quite like to suck your cock?_ You think that wouldn’t put a strain on _your_ friendship?”

“I already did tell him that, three years ago, and here we are, friends, and we’re getting along fine. You _don_ _’t_ want to suck his cock, though,” said Anders mildly. “He’s a brat about it.”

“I can’t even tell if you’re joking. Maker, I need another drink,” muttered Varric.

“I told you I was funny,” said Anders. “I didn’t even know you liked men.”

“Neither did I,” said Varric. “I don’t even know if I do, not properly. I think it’s just him.”

Anders nodded sagely. “Yes, because you’re not into men, which is why you’re so desperately into Hawke, who is, last I checked, a man—”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” said Anders quietly. “A lot of people have said that sort of thing to me. _It_ _’s not men,_ or _it_ _’s not women_ , it’s just this _one_ man or this _one_ woman. But the thing about exceptions is that they tend to disprove the rule.”

Varric shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I need a drink,” said Anders, waving at the barmaid. He flashed her a winning smile; she rolled her eyes. Varric stifled a laugh, then blinked as Anders’ earlier statement settled in. “Blondie, when you asked what I’d do if they made Hawke tranquil—”

Anders smiled, a wistful, sad sort of smile. “It’s a bad way to lose someone you care about, Varric.”

“So you and Karl—”

“Yes.”

“Maker,” mumbled Varric. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know if it would hurt any less if we hadn’t been lovers,” said Anders. “So don’t be sorry. Don’t— don’t be any _more_ sorry.”

“Still.”

Anders shrugged. “We grew up in the Ferelden Circle. The templars weren’t quite as bad as they are in the Gallows, but that’s like saying rashvine’s not quite as unhealthy as deathroot, isn’t it? They’d look at us, and there was always this— fear in their eyes. It’s easy for fear to turn into violence. You learn that young, in the Circle. If you startle someone, make someone nervous, you pay for it quickly and in blood. Karl and I weren’t under any illusions about the world we lived in.”

Varric leaned back in his chair and appraised the other man. “Sounds like a hell of a way to fall in love.”

“Oh, it was brutal. _Love_ was a strong word, at first. We don’t get that, right? We don’t get love, or marriage, or family, and we know that from the start. So I think the both of us figured _well, we_ _’d better not start caring about each other, because that’ll end horribly,_ and we spent a couple of years messing around and not talking about it. And then, after my— fourth? Fifth? One of my escape attempts, they threw me in solitary for a week. In hindsight, it was nothing. But in that moment, it was _torture._ And when they finally let me out, I’d barely put a foot past the threshold when Karl was there, and he just—” Anders’ voice cracked. He cleared his throat. Varric pretended not to notice. “He just _held_ me, like I was some fine china he didn’t want to break, and I swear in that moment I didn’t care that we were only ever going to be a tragedy.”

The barmaid set down a drink in front of Anders and walked away. He didn’t pick it up, just stared at it like it was some unfamiliar ancient elven artifact.

“Anyways,” muttered Anders, “we _were_ a tragedy, but at least I went into it with my eyes open.”

“That why you made me and Hawke your pet project?” asked Varric mildly. “Another inevitable tragedy?”

Anders snorted, half a chuckle and half a scoff. “You’re not my _pet project._ And no. I just think your excuses are piss-poor, and I hate watching you look at him like that. And for whatever reason, he seems to like the two of us, so I have to watch you look at him a _lot._ ”

Varric laughed. “Oh, please enlighten me. How _precisely_ do I look at Hawke?”

“Like he’s Andraste’s twin brother,” Anders said.

“Fuck off,” said Varric dryly.

“Put that in your book.”

“How do you know I’m writing a book?” asked Varric.

“You’re always writing a book,” said Anders.

That was fair. Varric shrugged. “You come off well in this draft. I figure once it hits stands, the Champion’s witty ex-Warden friend is going to sway a lot of people to the mages’ cause.”

Anders smiled, half wistful and half an odd sort of bitter that Varric couldn’t place. “It’d be nice if that was all it took.”

“Don’t underestimate a good story, Blondie.”

“I spent decades kept prisoner by the Chantry,” Anders said. “I’m under no illusions about the power of a good story.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “Blasphemy, this early in the day? I bet you Meredith just got a headache and has no idea why.”

Anders smirked. “Good.” He finally picked up his drink, swilled the ale around a bit, and took a sip. “He looks at you the same way, you know.”

Varric snorted. “Sure he does.”

“Not like you’re Andraste’s twin brother,” said Anders with a grin. “I don’t think Hawke’s much of a believer. But like you’re his rock. Like he could handle everything else in the world burning down, so long as he had you by his side.”

“He’s always _going_ to have me by his side,” said Varric.

“Go tell him that, idiot.”

“He knows,” said Varric.

“Right,” agreed Anders. “Absolutely. As we all know, Hawke is not only a highly skilled mage, but also a mind-reader. Better alert the Divine at our earliest convenience, so she can come up with some new guard of telepath hunters and mail them direct to Kirkwall.”

“What do the demons look like to _you_?” asked Varric. “Seeing as we’re all in a sharing mood.”

Anders smiled, but the expression was underpinned by a sadness that was almost difficult to look at. “Well— I faced some in my early days with the Wardens, and I’d seen one or two in dreams before that. They looked like people I knew, mostly. Not necessarily people I knew _well—_ but people I’d seen around the Circle, acquaintances, a friend or two. All much more attractive than they were in real life, of course.”

“Completely naked, I assume?”

Anders laughed. “No. They weren’t _modestly_ dressed, but— it was peasant shirts with the lacing undone, or skirts that went just past the knee, or a tight pair of trousers. Jewelry, lots of necklaces, rings. Not a Circle robe in sight. That was what really tempted me, I think. You know, sometimes you walk past someone on the street who catches your eye, and you’re a block away and still thinking _I wonder if I just walked right by my soulmate_. That’s what the Circle was. All these people who I knew so well, and I had no idea who they were, and I’d never be able to stop wondering _what if?_ ”

“So the demons offered you an answer to those what-ifs?”

“For a while,” said Anders.

“And now?”

He sighed. “Now they offer me a future full of blood and rage and death. And every time, I want to take it.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”

“No,” said Anders. “Whatever I do with my life, I refuse to let it be at the behest of a demon. There will be no fade-addled rampages in my future.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” muttered Varric.

There was a long pause while Anders finished his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyways. I just came to tell you to quit pining like a schoolgirl, and now look at me spilling my guts. Man up. Go talk to Hawke. You expect me to believe that the greatest romance novelist Thedas has ever seen can’t tell a man he’s got feelings for him? Just repurpose a line from _Helmets and Halberds_ , or something.”

“There’s nothing I can say to that suggestion that makes me look good,” said Varric.

“No, there isn’t! You and Nathaniel should start a club. Get shirts made. They could say ‘ _I was less witty than Anders and all I got was a templar interrogation._ _’_ Pitch that to your friends in the Merchant’s Guild.”

“Get out of my pub, Blondie,” said Varric, not without affection.

“What, do you own the place now? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Varric rolled his eyes.

Look,” said Anders, sobering up a bit and leaning forward to catch Varric’s eye, “I can’t make you do anything. But I said what I came here to. And if you ever want to talk, well, you know where to find me. That’s all.”

“Thanks,” Varric said— and against his better judgement, he found he meant it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking the leap and posting the first chapter before I'm done the second one-- hopefully to keep myself accountable to you guys! Please comment if you have a second, it really helps motivate me and it means the world.
> 
> This week's thing rec is _Dreadnought_ by April Daniels. Trans lesbian superhero and her cyberpunk cowgirl ...friend... save the world! If you want a YA book that's 1/3 great characters, 1/3 cool worldbuilding, and 1/3 exciting action, with a sprinkle of legitimately rip-out-your-heart-and-stomp-on-it sad (in the best way possible), give it a go!
> 
> Thanks for reading, as always. Love y'all. Stay safe out there.


End file.
